The Saint Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin, March 17 in March 2016 / AFP / Archives
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The St. Patrick’s Day parade scheduled for March 17 in Dublin has been canceled for the second year in a row due to the pandemic, organizers of the popular event in the Irish capital announced on Wednesday.
Instead of the traditional festivities, virtual celebrations will be scheduled from March 12 to 17, which will be broadcast on a dedicated internet television channel, accessible on the festival’s website (), the organizers said in a statement.
“We can’t get together in the streets for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade on March 17, but we are reimagining how to bring the heart and soul of the National Parade to life,” with shows and bands including “ the public is invited to participate virtually, ”they explained.
In 2019, St. Patrick’s Day, which celebrates Ireland’s patron saint, drew 500,000 people to Dublin, including around 100,000 tourists, according to Irish media.
But the following year, the festivities were canceled across the country, a week before the public holiday when pubs are usually taken by storm, at the start of the first wave of the new coronavirus, when only 24 positive cases had been identified. .
Ireland is now in the grip of a “tsunami” of contaminations, according to Prime Minister Micheal Martin, with 176,839 contaminations and 2,708 deaths officially counted for only five million inhabitants.
Reconfined to at least one month in January, the country recently had the highest incidence rate in the world (seven-day average), according to data compiled by the University of Oxford.
The St. Patrick’s Day parades had already been canceled in 2011 due to foot-and-mouth disease.
- www.stpatricksfestival.ie/
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